Monday, August 27, 2012

A New Nook!

Let's take a little trip together. A trip to the dark and dreary land of our breakfast nook. After scrapping wallpaper and removing the old dark chair rail, we were left with this.

A feast for the eyes, eh?

The first change to this space (besides removing that old fruit wallpaper) was to address the lighting. Installing recessed lights throughout the kitchen made a world of difference!

It stayed just like this for quite awhile but with school fast approaching it was time to tackle the rest of this eat in kitchen area. The kids ate breakfast and lunch here regularly but we really needed this to be a multifunctional space for eating, painting/crafts, homework, learning activites and congregating as a family.

We began by priming and painting those aweful walls. I'm not one to jump on a trend but I couldn't resist the pull of the ombre! I had planned to use stripes to help the space feel larger, so a subtle ombre striped wall was the perfect backdrop. You can read about how we tackled that bad boy here.

Seating was a big issue in this space - the table and chairs could seat four, so someone in our family of five was always out of luck. To expand seating we took advantage of the corner space by adding an L-shaped bench (scored off craigslist), which expanded our seating to seven. We said goodbye to the honey colored finish and gave her a fresh coat of white paint.

They were pretty basic, but the feature that sold me was the additional storage in the bench seats. Show em', Vanna...

I lined the inside with a graphic shelf liner from TJMaxx and filled them with art/craft supplies. This one holds all of our painting supplies (in one box so that when it's time to paint, I only have to pull out one thing) as well as pencils, crayons and tape. I keep glue and scissors in a nearby bookcase where little fingers can not reach.

It is so nice to have all of our arts and craft supplies in one location, right where we'll be doing the creating! We also made a kids art gallery in the dining room, so new masterpieces can go straight up for display.

To ensure the benches would be a comfy spot to sit, we made a cushion using 2" foam, cut it to size with a sharp serrated knife and covered it with some grey fabric (actually a sheet). I will probably replace it with a fun outdoor fabric at some point. Outdoor fabrics are a great option for well-used areas like this - they hold up well to little ruffians and clean up well too. Another option is to treat your regular fabrics with Scotch Guard to give them an added durability and protection against spills and stains.

I busted out all of the pillows in about an hour using this super easy envelope pillow cover tutorial by Maillardville Manor. I don't think I'll ever make pillows another way! (You can use Scotch Guard to prevent messy stains on these puppies too). The envelope cover makes it super easy to pull off and toss right in the wash.

We stuck with the same table and chairs giving them a fresh coat of paint and making a minor adjustment to the height of the chairs. I had the hubs take off the top rung which was a much better proportion to the benches and gave them a smaller footprint in the tiny space.

A quick sanding and they were ready to go!

I wanted to have some fun with color here, so I covered the natural seat fibers with painters tape and Press n Seal, then went to work. Hhhmmmm. Salmon anyone?

A lovely color but not the bold coral I was going for. This color was Valspar's Passion Pink. It was very close to the color chip but far less dark and saturated as the color sample on the lid.

Our second attempt (sample on the right) was the perfect shade, Valspar's Autumn Fire. It gave the chairs just the right pop of color!

The prints on the wall are another DIY project. I took one of our
favorite Dr. Seuss quotes ("The more that you read, the more things you
will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go") and
broke it up into four sections. I used a digital scrap-booking kit,
"First Comes Love" by Shawna Clingerman, to create a print for each
section and then framed them in these white lovelies I grabbed on sale
from Target.

They mark this is as a place to explore, learn and create!

We mounted 3 knobs from Hobby Lobby right next to the benches. With 3 kids so close in age everything tends to get identified with an initial or color coded to keep everyone's belongings with the right little person. Here we went with pink/purple (Mia), green (Jack), and blue (Sully) knobs for each of the kidlet's art smocks. Easily accessible and easy to put away when art time is over.

Mr. Owl holds our twistable Crayola colored pencils that we use most often. His spot in the corner keeps them handy but also out of the way.

That colorful scallop striped fabric by Michael Miller inspired the whole color palette for this cozy space. The entire area feels so much brighter and much more inviting.

We are over-the-moon thrilled with this fresh new area of our home!

One last before and after? Here we go....

Before:

After:

Now to get the rest of the kitchen and floors up to speed! But first maybe a little break :)

75 comments:

Deme, WOW, it looks amazing. When we buy a house, you will have to come over and share some of your wonderfulness with me! This area really came together nicely. It is fresh, clean, calming, and I LOVE it!

I planned to do something very similar to this in our kitchen nook! I bought a very similar benches, with seat storage, off CL months ago but I still haven't painted them. How did you paint them, spray paint, sand them and them use a brush, etc.? Can't wait to do this after seeing yours...nice!

Hi Valerie! I gave mine a light sanding, wiped them down with a damp cloth and once they were dry, gave them a couple coats of spray paint. I used a primer/paint combo and it worked great, otherwise just prime first. I followed the same step I did here:

I did the ombre stripes in blue over the weekend and painted the benches and tables white. I used 11 cans of spray paint and the table top looked splotchy so I re-did it with trim paint and a brush. I'm trying to figure out which way to go with my cabinets in the rest of my kitchen (paint them white or dark brown/expresso??) When I finish up I'll show you what you've inspired in my home! I am curious to know what you plan for the rest of your kitchen (i.e. if you plan to paint the cabinets, etc.). thanks again for inspiring my project and motivating me.

Awesome Valerie!! I can't wait to see how it turns out! We are in the middle of painting our cabinets white and we'll be carrying the darkest shade of grey on our ombre wall to the rest of the kitchen. We'll update the hardware and maybe paint the grout lines on the tile floor. I would love to replace the floor but it's just not in our budget.

Here's a post on the full plans for this 2nd phase of our kitchen reno:http://freshpaintabq.blogspot.com/2012/06/kitchen-phase-ii-our-summer-project.html

And here's a pic of the back splash tile we'll be installing in phase 3. We're hoping to go with walnut butcher block countertops in that final phase too.

So, I finally (almost) finished this nook project enough to share it with you! The spray paint method for the furniture did NOT work for me (maybe because I sanded the sheen off the original finish (even though you said I didn't need to), it kept coming out dull looking despite using semi gloss spray paint, so I finally busted out the roller and paint brushes and used latex paint. As far as the walls. I may change the darkest (bottom) color in my ombre effect wall as it does not flow as well from one color to the next like your's does, probably because I didn't mix them together but picked 5 different shades of blue straight from paint swatches. Anyway, Here's the link to the post that you inspired....thanks so much!

Hey! I came over here from ihearorganizing and I just had to tell you that I LOVE this nook! I have a similar weird space/table arrangement and now I am so inspired to find some benches and take advantage of that corner! Thanks for the idea and inspiration. :)

I am loving your new nook! I love the colors, the coziness, and..well everything! I am a new fan of your blog. So much so that I nominated you for a Liebster Award (have you ever heard of it? I hadn't it but it is a fun idea!). To find out what that even means go here: http://mjsomethingoutofnothing.blogspot.com/2012/09/ive-been-nominated.html that is the post at my blog that I nominated you in. Thanks for sharing your talents with us! I am going to steal your idea with the different tones of gray on the walls. I was going to do 2 tones of alternating gray but I love your idea much better!

also, I haven't fully decided on a color yet (thinking grey, teal, or purple), but I wondered what you did with the rest of your kitchen, is it done (or going to be done) in ombre effect too, is it one solid grey color, or another color all together? thanks so much for the inspiration and help!

What a beautiful transformation! I love the wall! And the colors. And the patterns. And everything! It's so pretty and inviting. I would come over but then you'd never get rid of me because I wouldn't want to leave :)

P.s. I would love if you shared this at my Throwback Thursday party. I hope to see you there! http://www.hubbymademe.com/throwback-thursday-no-10/

You really made this corner in your kitchen come alive. Love all the charm and colors you used. What a great idea of cutting down the chairs. I never would have thought to do that.Happy to be a new follower, Mary Alice

Just found you guys from YHL- this is awesome!! I am absolutely in love with everything about this nook! I think the owl in the corner holding the colored pencils is the icing on the cake for me. You guys are fab- excited to be a new follower!

Thanks so much! Since the walls were flat, we had a contractor friend texture them to match the texture on the other walls, and then we applied two coats of a good primer to seal them (we used Kilz from Lowes) before painting the stripes. Hope that helps!

GOOD CALL on the ombre walls...it's honestly the cutest use of the technique I've ever seen!! What an adorable, cheery, stylish little nook. You must just love using it! Where will ombre look good in my house...

Hi! I'm a new follwer on this blog and your family blog (I'm a catholic mum so it's nice to read along with others) and found you via YHL. I absolutely LOVE this nook! I sent the link to my hubby and we are going to start making bench seats this weekend as our dining area needs to be like yours. Got three kids and no space. thanks for the inspiration and looking forward to seeing what you're up to in the future. :)

Your nook looks great! I am VERY impressed and thinking about doing a similar thing in a house I just bought. I actually found similar benches on CL today and was wondering if you would mind saying what you bought them for? I am not very good at negotiating and wanted to know what a good price would be.

Hi Sarah! I'm not sure if I got a great deal either but I think we got them for right around $100.00 (they were like new). The table wasn't included, just the benches. If they are in good shape, I think between $75-$125 is reasonable but it depends on where you live too. Hope that helps!

$150 is a great deal for the whole set! I made the cushions by cutting a large piece of 2" foam to size. I covered them with an old sheet at first just to see how dirty they would get, and eventually decided on an a wipe-able, water resistant outdoor fabric that has held up great. I have a post coming soon on how I made the fabric covers :)

Your comments completely make my day! I'm literally grinning ear to ear whenever you take a minute to leave a note! Except spam. Not grinning over that. Or straight up mean. Not grinning over that either. We love a good open discussion but please save anything that's not constructive for someplace else.

About Me

My name is Deme and I'm so happy that you've stopped by! We are a family of five that is busy putting a fresh coat of paint (among other things!) on our new, old house...and we're excited to share our adventures in DIY here with you!